Is R.E.M. underrated by new music nerds?

I regularly see and hear the 1980’s disparaged, but that’s a sentiment with which I don’t concur. Yeah, maybe the most widely heard and bought music was not the best, but on the cult level we had a completely different situation.

During the 80’s we had fantastic music being made by Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, NRBQ, Ry Cooder, Los Lobos, Marshall Crenshaw, Chris Isaak, Richard Thompson, John Hiatt, John Prine, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, Little Feat, Elvis Costello, Leo Kottke, Loudon Wainwright III, Dire Straits, X, The Blasters, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The Neville Brothers, Tom Petty, Dwight Twilley, Crowded House, The Records, The Bangles, The Plimsouls, XTC, Cheap Trick, T Bone Burnett, Peter Case, The Long Ryders, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Carlene Carter, Rosanne Cash, Nanci Griffith, Foster & Lloyd (great live!), Warren Zevon, Rickie Lee Jones, Tracy Chapman, Kate Bush, The Replacements, The Lyres (a great Garage Band, if that’s not an oxymoron ;-) , The Clash (I don’t like ’em, but you may), The Pretenders.

Do I need to continue? Not bad for a decade, imo.

The Clash for sure. The rest are OK, some I am a fan of, but most I can live without.

it's all subjective

@grislybutter 

Sorry Grisly but I just can't abide Bono.  A small-minded show-off who thinks he's a politician.  There's a great story circulating you may not have heard:

U2 were playing in Glasgow many years ago.  In between numbers Bono started clapping his hands slowly and shouted out in his over-emphasised Northern Irish brogue:  "Every time I clap my hands a child dies"  Immediately the response came from the audience: "Well stop f***ing clapping then".  Love that.

I've been in a R.E.M. phase in late 2018, they kept me going through the toughest period of my life. A lot of their stuff especially in their incredible 1987-1996 run means a lot to me and have been pivotal in growing my music taste but emotion aside I think quality-wise they were one of the greatest rock band of all time, if not one the best band. I actually think this is not a hot take.

What I think is an interesting thing to discuss is how R.E.M. are relevant to new audiences of my age (I'm 20 btw) like all the music nerds that grew on the Internet (RYM or /mucore) or the music channels or profiles on YouTube and Instagram that review or examine music.

I think that in this demographic area R.E.M. are underrated or more specifically they are put inside the categories of "Gen X bands" like U2 or similar. And i think it's a shame because they have one the best musical palettes of all time provided by really skilled musicians and an incredible and eclectic vocalist and songwriter like Michael Stipe. A band that even when they became globally famous they managed to stay coherent to their sound (until at least the early 90s) and political ethic. Their material should get more recognition among younger audiences like mine considering the huge influence they had on a lot of artist.

What do you think?

I got this,...

+1 @yyzsantabarbara, "Mind Bomb" by THE THE is a great album. The slower and darker version of "The Beat(en) Generation" on their latest release ("The Comeback Special") better reflects the times that we are living in now, compared to when "Mind Bomb" was released in 1989.

+1 @bdp24, that's the first time I've ever seen FOSTER & LLOYD mentioned in these forums. Now, that is truly an underrated band!

As for REM, I lived in Georgia during much of their heyday. I always thought they were a good band, but not a great one. In retrospect, I'm finding that their music has not held up as well as I would've thought. Now I'm beginning to wonder if REM was The Eagles of the 1980's, a good band that happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I hate to make that comparison, knowing what Gram Parsons said about them, an all time great  diss of : "The Eagles are just a dry plastic f**k."